


A Place to Stay For The Night

by loveydoveywrites



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Confessions, F/M, Fluff, Kisses, Late Nights, Lucas is a sweetie, Max is cool, Minor Character(s), Post season/series 2, Studying, max’s family sucks, tiniest bit of angst, we need more of this relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-30 02:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13940685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveydoveywrites/pseuds/loveydoveywrites
Summary: Max spends her night at the Sinclair’s residence, specifically Lucas’s room





	A Place to Stay For The Night

**Author's Note:**

> That summary kind of sounds a lil smutty but this fic is not at all smut ok I promise

It was a Monday night when Max finally decided she had enough.

Enough of her clueless mom, enough of her stupid stepdad, and enough of her wretched step brother Billy.

With her trusty skateboard in hand, Max quietly snuck through her window next to her bed. This time, however, she left a small note saying she was going to a friend’s place and then dipped.

As soon as she was a few blocks away from her home, the red headed teen completely forgot about her plan to go to a friend’s house.

Mike’s? No she thought remembering he was babysitting Holly with El. She didn’t want to frustrate them even more because they already got their hands full with an energetic toddler.

Will’s? Yeah no that’d be weird. Nope. Max knew for a fact that they haven’t even had a full on conversation with each other. She planned on trying to talk to him more this year but got sidetracked with bonding with El. She was glad to be able to finally warm up to Eleven, but still felt she couldn’t say anything to Will. What would she do anyway if she knocked on his door with “Hiya I know we don’t talk much but I’m gonna sleep over since my asshole of a family is acting like shit!” Yeah no, no way.

Dustin’s? She actually considered it, but also erased it out of her mind thinking about how tired he’d be. It was half past midnight now that she thought about it. The last time the party had a sleepover, at Mike’s, she tried waking him up at midnight to scare the rest of the group with a few Halloween gadgets she bought, but instantly regretted it as he started thrashing in his sleep when she just barely nudged him. She was sure he had some vivid dreams or was just a morning person.

That left only one house that she could sleep over at.

Lucas’s house

“Yeah this’ll work. Yeah, definitely.” This wasn’t the first time she’s stepped foot into his home, but she had never slept over. She just hoped that his parents would be okay with her staying for the night and not think too much of it. The last thing she wanted was Lucas’s parents getting worried about her. She knew the Sinclair’s were a kind family, but couldn’t help but feel unsure.

With that last thought, she set her skateboard down and headed towards the Sinclair’s.

_________________

 

It was nearly 1:00am when she finally got to his house. She heard the faint sounds of a television show she recognized playing and sighed with relief knowing that someone was awake at this hour to possibly let her in.

The tired skater picked up her sticker covered skateboard and walked up to their door.

_Knock knock knock_

Max stood on their porch looking up into the night sky as she waited for either Mr. Sinclair or Mrs. Sinclair to open the door. She was left looking at the sky for a bit too long before she finally noticed no one has opened the door for quite a while. She peeked through their window before seeing a shadow come towards the door. She stepped back a few steps getting ready to greet Mr or Mrs Sinclair and possibly beg them to let her stay for the night.

_Click_

“Hi Mr. Sinclair I know it’s really late in the night for me to be showing up but I thought-“ Max adjusted her gaze to the person in front of her but was surprised to see Lucas.

“Shhh! Just get in!” Lucas whispered to the baffled girl and pulled her in.

“Lucas? What the heck shouldn’t you be- hey!” Max was cut off by Lucas grabbing her arm and dragging her up the stairs to his room.

“What the heck was that?” Max screamed in a whisper. “Do you want to wake up my parents?” Lucas retorted.

“Listen, Erica went to her friend’s to have a sleepover. My dad was watching tv downstairs and fell asleep and my mom is in her bedroom also asleep.” Lucas explained already knowing that Max was going to ask.

“How are you not asleep?” Max questioned the boy in front of her. “Didn’t you have like, a math quiz tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but.......” Lucas didn’t finish his sentence and Max looked at him in confusion.

“But?” Max asked forcing him to set his eyes on to hers.

“It’s nothing. I was just studying with Mike and El over my super-com for so long that I lost track of time.” Lucas said breaking their gaze.

Hm. Max knew that she wasn’t the only one feeling the tension in his room. It stayed silent for a while and Max did not like it one bit.

She sat down on his bed taking in her surroundings. There were a few photos of him and the boys on his dresser and many action figures stuffed in donation boxes near his closet. She also noticed a couple of math notes scattered around on his bed.

“Why did you come over?” Lucas finally asked, breaking the silence that was drowning Max.

“Family again?” Lucas asked again this time walking towards her to sit on his bed next to her.

“Yeah” Max mumbled as her face fell recalling the scary memories of Billy throwing plates at her stepdad and screaming at her weak mom. At least she got out of the situation safely remembering how she ran to her room and locked it before she heard the rest of the riot downstairs.

“You know you can come here anytime right? I’m here, we're all here for you, you know that right? You’re part of our party.” Lucas reassured her in his normal tone of voice and put his hand over hers causing her to look up to him.

“Thanks stalker.” Max responded with a half smile.

“So what do you want to do?” He finally said trying to lift up her feelings. Lucas questioned the red head before remembering that it was almost a quarter to 2 and their options of fun were very limited.

“I guess I can help you study?” Max suggested.

“Yeah that’d be cool”

Both teens reposition themselves face to face with their legs crossed. For the next hour, Max quizzed him on multiple math equations, questions, and fill in the blanks. She knew he was ready for this stupid quiz, so why did he seem unsure of himself? It was common knowledge that their party were complete nerds, not in a bad way though, except for Max and El. To Max, she thought they were mega cool because 1, one of them could ride a skateboard, and 2, the other was a telekinetic superhero. She knew something was up, and she didn’t want it to go in between their friendship in the future.

After quizzing Lucas on all the math notes he had Max let out a breathy laugh.

“Wow, for a science geek I’m pretty impressed.” Max smiled at the young boy as he let out an accomplished grin.

“Thanks for helping me” Lucas thanked the girl in front of him. He couldn’t help but smile like an idiot because of her. The light on his dresser gave her a golden, almost glowing tone, that hugged her wavy red hair. Her colorful freckles that he would spend a day just counting all of them made her seem so bright and sunny. Everything about her made him feel happy and just, relaxed. 

Finishing his math notes left them with only the options of board games since that was the only thing not in any of the donation boxes. So they spent their time playing Connect Four and Scrabble. Max couldn’t help but notice the how different he was acting though. He’d normally try to punch her in the shoulder in a friendly, funny way, whenever she did a dumb action in the game, but was confused to find him only letting out small laughs when she lost. And when he’d win, he’d normally throw his hands in the air and move around in crazy ways, but was a little worried to see him just say “Yes!”

They were on the floor now with Max’s knees coming up to her chin and Lucas’s legs crossed. After countless wins and losses, they finally got tired of playing and were left in once again, utter silence.

“Uh Lucas?” Max poked his knee causing him to quickly stutter out something dumb. He hoped for the best.

“O-oh! Uh y-yeah?” Lucas casually put his hand on his hips and smiled at her. He was obviously lost in thought.

“What’s wrong?” Max fixed her eyes up on to him with a serious expression.

No response

“What’s that thing that Mike and Eleven say like everyday? Oh yeah that’s right, _friends don’t lie_.” Max was definitely putting pressure on him this time, even scooting a bit closer to the boy sitting in front of her with her arms crossed.

Lucas felt like he was being interrogated and was so sure he was sweating like crazy.

“Nothings wrong.” Lucas said with a shaky tone.

“You really think I’m that gullible? You and I both know that you’re going to get an A on this dumb math quiz, but for some reason  
you’re acting as if you’ve been studying all night and getting worked up for literally a 10 question quiz on variables! And you’ve been acting really off this whole time.”

“So why were you really awake at this time Lucas?” This final question was one she was dying to ask getting more and more curious by the second. She knew right from the beginning that he was lying when he said that he was studying with Mike on the super-com because Mike told her the other day that his broke since it was so old. She felt like she was part of an investigation and wished she had some weird spotlight to shine on Lucas just to add to the interrogation effect.

“God this is going to be so embarrassing.” Lucas groaned as he covered his face with his hands.

“Just spit it out!”

“Fine! I was staying up practicing.” Lucas said hoping to god that Max wouldn’t ask what he was practicing.

“Practicing what?”

Oh god.

“I-I was trying to get myself ready to ask you out tomorrow, or today I guess.”

Max’s eyes widen in surprise.

“I was planning to ask you like a week ago, but I chickened out and then I tried again the next day, but I freaked out again and it’s just-“

“Are you trying to ask me out on a date Stalker?” The red head interrupted with a smirk.

“Ummm...yeah?” Lucas cringed at his response thinking of the possible smooth line he could have said in that moment.

At that response, Max moved in and planted a kiss on his lips. It was a short one but it was just as sweet as the one they shared many months ago in the gym of Hawkins Middle.

Lucas was surprised to say the least. The last time they kissed was ages ago, but he remembered replaying it over and over again after that wonderful night at the Snowball. Now, he felt like he was in one of those cheesy teen romance movies that Nancy always watched.

They both smiled, looking away to hide their blushes.

“You know I would have said yes right?” Max finally opened her mouth after a few seconds of silence.

“Yeah, but I was still nervous. You know this isn’t the first time I was too nervous to ask you something?”

Max looked at him with a raised eyebrow waiting for him to explain.

“It was the night of the snowball, and I spent over 30 minutes in front of my mirror getting ready to ask you, in a cool way, to dance with me. Every time I think back to that moment I cringe and just want to slap myself because of how embarrassing it was. It didn’t help that Erica walked in on me and started to mock me.” Lucas shared a laugh as Max had to hold her face from smiling too much.

They giggled for a while until Max looked at the alarm clock on Lucas’s dresser.

**5:00am**

_Shit_.

“I guess we pulled an all nighter.” Lucas smiled through this words as Max’s expression calmed realizing that they did. It literally felt like seconds ago she was being dragged up the Sinclair’s staircase.

“I guess I should get back home now before your parents go crazy that a girl spent a night over in your room.” Lucas nodded his head in agreement and made sure his door was locked just in case his mom or dad would walk in by surprise.

The two quietly walked down the stairs and found Lucas’s dad still asleep with the television still on.

Lucas tried as best as he could to open the door without making too much sound. Max stepped out on to their wooden porch and was greeted by a bright orange sunrise.

Before saying their goodbyes, Lucas grabbed Max’s hand, pulling her close to him. He underestimated how close they were going to be, but quickly shooed away his nervousness and replaced it with a sudden boldness.

Their lips met once again with Lucas’s hand meeting Max’s waist. It lasted quite a few more seconds than the one they had just a few minutes ago and it sure felt amazing.

“Bye Stalker.” Max finally whispered before she stepped off of his porch and got on her skateboard.

“Bye MadMax.” Lucas murmured to himself in a dreamy state as he watched her ride farther into the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m still a little unsure of how well I wrote Lucas in this but I ttttthhhhiinnnkkk I did Max justice or I’d like to hope so:) plz leave comments and thanks for reading!


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